There is a quiet place that burns brightly with the hearth fires. Family and friends gather round and love flows through each stone and tile. Food is prepared with loving hand and warmth flows like liquid honey sweetening the time spent together. There is no one location, for this space resides wherever there is heart enough to hold its flame of contentment and acceptance.   The days are feeling shorter and the nights longer and I am ready to burrow in and tend to my need fires.  In response to this turning within I have been thinking alot lately about the relationships and people in my life.  About what nurtures and feeds my soul and which interactions could use a bit more tending to keep those fires of connection burning. And, the energy of gratitude has been called front and center as I am reminded of how truly fortunate and blessed I am.

As a child I was always told to be polite and to say please and thank you for what I hoped to receive and what gifts had come my way.  I was taught that these were part of the routine of daily life and that gratitude offered would bring abundance in all endeavors. I was loved and cared for by my mother and grandmother and although we did not have much financially, there was always enough good food lovingly prepared by my grandmother and time to spend together with my mother despite her demanding schedule of two jobs at times.  Hestia's flame burned deeply and love and gratitude was etched very deeply into everything that occurred in that home. The Goddess was present in the strength of the women who shared my life and actions were infused with the tools needed to teach how to call those flames of strength into my own life.

When I married and had a family of my own, the kitchen, although tiny and crowded for seven in a family was the starting place of special meals, candle making, pots and pans music making and at times the only space available for a one on one conversation with one of our children.  Calendars hung on refrigerators alongside of treasured pictures drawn by tiny hands and offered with pride. What came out of Hestia's domain was filled with love and with always more than enough to feed seven hungry mouths. Smells of fresh bread baking, yogurt setting and homemade chocolate syrup wafted through the air and welcomed any who entered to linger a while and enjoy food and friends. Even when full time work and busy after school schedules held sway, the sacred fires of the hearth burned in the crock pot filled at lunchtime and set to greet the first one home with the tempting fragrance of soup or stew.

As the children grew and went off to college, gifts from that hearth of long ago were often the request for breaks at home or deliveries up to schools. Hestia's flame lit the way to campuses and new apartments and a piece of home life graced their temporary living spaces reminding them that the strength of the hearth and home are always in abundance. And, reminding them to call to Hestia in creating their own growing flames and circle of friends and loved ones.

This year, with the turning of the wheel and the parting of the veils of Samhain, those hearth fires reached deeper and further.  The connection to the ancestors stoked those flames to a place of memory of all of those days spent in the loving embrace of family and the quiet moments spent simply enjoying the company of a dear friend. The hearth fires blazed brightly and with a luminosity that was the interweaving of life and death, dense physical matter and the splendor of non-corporeal energy.

Time has moved forward and changed the who, the where and the what, but Hestia has flowed through these changing cycles offering up her grace to be received and acted upon by those who recognize its power. I am ever reminded of the warmth of Hestia's hearth and the magick that is created in the embrace of sitting, talking and sharing with someone you treasure.

As we near Thanksgiving and the opportunity to spend time with some of my closest friends I want to fully embrace that space of gratitude for what has come before. And, in reaching towards what stands on the horizon, I know I will always find my way back to the warming fires of Hestia's home and loving embrace. May you find her Magick burning brightly and offered freely within your home of being.